Tickle-Time: Funny and Strange Stuff (IF Live Anniversary)

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Alrighty, peeps. I have a little prompt for you all… To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Live, give or take a few days, there’s a few things we should do…

Over the course of my involvement on Infinite Flight Live, as a pilot and advanced ATC, I’ve seen some pretty strange stuff… Not to mention, some pretty rib-busting ticklers as well.

Here’s one mention- I was controlling at JFK a few days ago. I had this guy on right downwind sequenced to follow a dude on final… After a little while, I checked the dude on final… and he wasn’t moving at all. Baffled, I peered closer at his stats. Oddly enough, his descent was spiraling rapidly to a point where it could be considered a flat spin- hence the zero signs of moving forward. With a chuckle, I kept seeing the feet about AGL drop… drop… drop… and drop to -100 feet or something, of which the guy promptly made a loud splash in the Atlantic…

Here’s another funnier story at JFK. During the anniversary of 9/11 (may they rest in peace…), several of my fellow controllers decided to do a memorial flight tour, totaling to an amount of four aircraft. I was controlling JFK yet again at the time, when they decided to do something a little… bold (hehehehe) with approach. Needless to say, they surfed all the way down to 200 feet AGL across the airport… Not once, not twice… but thrice. The reactions of the planes on the ground were some of the funniest I’ve seen in my life.

One small corporate jet had the perchance of seeing one of those aforementioned aircraft sail over his plane at… 50 feet, give or take. That resulted in said corporate taxiing into the grass- dumbfounded at what he saw. As the flights passed by and I cleared him for takeoff, he immediately banked to join the procession, but was promptly vectored far, far away by the approach controller, who was in cahoots. ;)

There was another instance with a heavy who saw one of those flights dash by… He then promptly slammed the brakes on his aircraft and stood there in stunned silence. It must’ve been a minute until he started moving again…

Said four flights were becoming quite bold, at one point of which one of them happen to slash past my tower view at no less than 20 feet! I actually have the pictures of the whole flight scenario, if anyone wants to see them… ;)

Anyway, with all that over… Pilots and controllers, I have a prompt for you. What’s some of the strangest or funniest things you’ve ever seen during the course of IF Live? I’m down for a few chuckles before heading to the doom and gloom of testing and classes and general miserableness tomorrow…

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It was permitted. We had it coordinated with the approach controller. There weren’t any other aircraft at the time (they happened to pop up on the first short pass). New York was empty at the time, so we did take care on using this method.

It was actually a guided tour of the New York area, which would have been much nicer with 3D buildings, I might add… ;)

If a regular pilot wanted to do something like that, it wouldn’t be too hard to do (as long as you coord with approach, perhaps). There is always VFR, after all.

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Well isn’t that Special… Flat hatting at the expense of the great unwashed.
I see no humor in this stunt. Who’s running that lash up anyway? I’d pull your & approaches ticket if I where. Mad Max Sends
(The Gaul! I’d delete this post if I where you Stick)

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The weirdest thing I’ve seen was a Space Shuttle spawn at KLAX (must’ve been a bug or something).

The strangest thing that’s happened to me: (and this was recent) I was PMing with the ATC that I was connected to while I was on final approach in my F-22 (flying manually of course). We had a good conversation until both of us realized at about the same time that I had forgotten my gear and I was about 10 seconds from touchdown. His last PM before my touchdown was “GEAR!!!”. In panic I lowered the gear and it locked right before I made contact with the concrete!

The dumbest thing I’ve done was pull up too quickly (coincidentally in an F-22 again) after lifting off from the runway. I was doing pattern work (left traffic), and the sudden yoke movement caused the jet to spin violently to the left. I lost lift and hit the mountains hard… Pretty embarrassing but I think it happened before I got the purple mod tag.

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Sean… I can’t believe you overlooked the Flat Hatting description in the initial post! Max Sends

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@Maxmustang

Each to their own. I see no harm in this sort of chuckle. I ran it by Sean, and he approves. Having a laugh at some antics during Live’s teething just serves to lighten up our spirits. It’s not like it’s a jest over the Speedbird fire at Vegas, anyway…

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K some funny stuff. Hmmmm…

I remember I’m racing @Drago_B in Paris. I actually lowered my gear at 12000 feet to slow down.

What else… When IF live first came out the server was(Great?). I saw complaints on IFFG such as hey you when I said I’m on final don’t get on the runway.

Oh god this made me remember another post on IFFG. It was so hilarious. Taxi under 500 knots? Listen to ATC instructions. I forgot the others and seems like I can’t find that screenshot to laugh at…

I went AFK one time when I’m doing patterns and I set VS-800 but never did the Alt. And boom I went to swim.

That’s all? I think.

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Sounds more like an abuse of power then anything @StikLover2 if any of us regular folk did that would you ghost us for it?

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@matt @philippe. The conduct condoned and described in the initial post is totally unacceptable. This place is out of control. Your guidance please. Max Mustang

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If he said they all had fun, it’s nice story but this is more like taking a Mick at people.

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Guys, relax.

Instead of causing trouble at Joshua’s expense, how about this…

Contact a controller (we’re all pretty approachable) and ask if you and some friends can go to an unpopulated region and do some low passes, while being vectored.

THATS IT. That’s what we did. Instead, you guys alienate yourselves by creating tension and conflict.

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@jasonrosewell NO! There will be no different strokes for special folk on my dime! This goes directly to the Developers. Max

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What I’m saying is, we asked the controller and he allowed it. Period.

Try doing the same. OR… Start fights with everyone and see where that gets you.

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Honestly, I’d argue that this was an event in progress. It was coordinated between everyone involved so I don’t see the issue. Tagging both developers (which btw takes time out of their developing and once again delays a future update).

I’m pretty sure special, coordinated events like this happen all the time IRL. Anyone coming too the airport that wasn’t on coms with the controllers would have been told “entry denied, event in progress”.

The reason why this was allowed is because the controllers knew about it and accepted the situation. There was no other traffic (which means it wasn’t busy). As long as you state your intentions to the controller(s) on duty and they agree to them, whether it’s through the ATC system or PM/group chat, I believe it’s perfectly fine to do so.

The reason you would get ghosted for something like this is because the controller(s) do not know what you’re doing, and they have no other choice than to ghost you.

As Jason said,

This isn’t because we’re a tight-net team or that we’re better than anyone, it’s the fact that it was an event coordinated with the controllers.

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In fact, before that event, I only really knew one of the guys.

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No more discussion! . This was the last straw for me.Let the Developers sort this out. Max

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The developers have moderators and staff for this. You won’t get anywhere with them. They’re “developers”. 😀